The Council Has Spoken!! This Week’s Watcher’s Council Results 04.12.13

JoshuaPundit on Apr 12 2013:

The Council Has Spoken! The votes have been cast, and the results are in for this week’s Watcher’s Council match up.

There was an important date in America’s history that just passed almost unnoticed.

This week’s winner, Joshuapundit’s Appomattox: The Fire Is Quenched is both an historical account of what occurred when General Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia and ended the Civil War and my take on something very important it has to teach us today? What is it? To find out you’ll have to read it and draw your own conclusions. Here’s a slice:
One hundred and forty eight years ago today, there was a place called Appomattox whose name was on every American’s tongue, and seared in every American’s heart, for good or ill. Today, it’s almost forgotten.

On April 9th, 1865, it was the site of General’s Lee’s surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia to General Ulysses S. Grant and the Army of the Potomac.It meant the end of the bloodiest and most costly war in American history.

Fittingly, it was a Sunday, the Christian Sabbath, when the two men met to do what both of them knew would end a terrible struggle. The two armies had hewed and hacked at each other in places like Antietam, Fredericksburg, The Wilderness, Gettysburg, Cold Harbor and Spottsylvania. For a generation afterwards, men who had been there and experienced what happened at these and other battles would grow quiet, remembering the horror of places like the Cornfield,the Stone Wall, the Bloody Angle, the Peach Orchard, and Devil’s Den.

But on that day, April 9th, the guns were eerily silent.It was as though the bones of 600,000 dead men had risen up as one to cry “enough! no more!”

General Lee had planned to make a final stand of it, a final try at breaking through and doing the broken field running he’d somehow managed to carry off throughout the war. Lee reasoned that if he could just smash through the Union cavalry screen with one all out effort and get his battered Army of Northern Virginia through to his supply trains at Lynchburg, he’d be able to regroup and fight another day.

When he learned that the Union cavalry was backed up by two fresh corps of infantry, he realized that after four years it was all over, that trying to break through with his starving, exhausted and outnumbered army was a vain hope. So on April 8th he sent a messenger under a flag of truce to ask for a meeting with General Grant to discuss terms. After the two men exchanged a series of notes, they agreed to meet.

Contrary to popular belief, Lee and Grant and their staffs didn’t meet in an actual courthouse. Instead, they met in a private home, that of Wilmer McLean, at 1:30 PM on a balmy spring afternoon.

For two and a half hours they sat and talked. After pitting every muscle and sinew, every ounce of intelligence, every iota of courage and will the two of them and their armies possessed against each other, the two adversaries finally met face to face.They had not seen each other since the Mexican War two decades earlier.

In our non-Council category, the winner was Sarah Palin with The Grocer’s Daughter submitted by Joshuapundit. It’s a brilliant tribute to Margaret Thatcher that focuses not on on her as a political revolutionary but as a class boundaries breaker. Do read it.

OK, here are this week’s full results:

Council Winners

*First place with 4 1/3 votes! Joshuapundit – Appomattox: The Fire Is Quenched
Second place*t* with 2 votes – The Noisy Room – NoKo-a-NoGo
Second place *t* with 2 votes – Simply Jews – Remembering Holocaust: the first British shots of WW II
Third place with 1 2/3 votes – Bookworm Room – The fundamental unconstitutionalism of Obama’s presidency
Fourth place *t* with 1 1/3 votes – The Right Planet – Subprime (Part Duh)
Fourth place *t* with 1 1/3 votes – VA Right! – Gun Control: Exceptions for Rape, Incest and the Life (or Health) of the Gun Owner?
Fifth place with 2/3 vote – The Razor – A Phone Call Between Premier Li and President Obama
Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote – The Colossus of Rhodey – The Politics Behind DC’s The Movement
Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote – *Gay Patriot – Margaret Thatcher: Feminist Icon

Non-Council Winners

First place with 2 2/3 votes! – *Sarah Palin – The Grocer’s Daughter submitted by Joshuapundit
Second place with 2 1/3 votes – David Feith/WSJ – The Golf Shot Heard Round the Academic World submitted by Bookworm Room
Third place with 1 2/3 votes – Jack Kerwick/FrontPage Magazine – Six Alinsky Rules That Explain Obama’s Words and Deeds submitted by The Noisy Room
Fourth place *t* with 1 vote – Spengler – Coming ‘crash’ will end in a snooze submitted by The Watcher
Fourth place *t* with 1 vote – Adventures of a Broken Soldier – Disabled Purple Heart veteran, embarassed at local business. submitted by Rhymes With Right
Fifth place *t* with 2/3 votes – Roger Ebert’s Journal – A Leave of Presence submitted by The Glittering Eye
Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote – Terry Glavin – “We will rid the world of the evil-doers,” ten years after. submitted by Simply Jews
Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote – Powerline – Gay son of congressman ‘canceled’ for refusing to serve as prop for Lefty talk show hosts submitted by Gay Patriot
Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote – Douglas Ernst – MSNBC’s ‘Political Playground’ belongs in a ‘Simpsons’ Treehouse of Horrors special submitted by The Colossus of Rhodey
Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote – The Compass/ Alex Berezow – Will We Enter a Post-Democracy World? submitted by GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD
Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote – *TEA Party News Network – The 25 Margaret Thatcher Quotes that Crush Obama and the Left submitted by VA Right!
Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote – *Newsmax – Margaret Thatcher on Socialism submitted by The Razor
Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote – Thomas Patrick Burke – The Origins of Social Justice: Taparelli d’Azeglio submitted by The Right Planet
Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote – Michelle Malkin – No Tears for Lynne Stewart submitted by The Watcher

Honorable Mentions

Ask Marion – *Margaret Thatcher, The Iron Lady – Freedom Fighter and Icon Dies at 87
Maggie’s Notebook – Ft. Hood: Nidal Hasan Not a Terrorist – Meaning No Purple Heart for Dying or Wounded Hearing Allahu Akhbar
The Pirate’s Cove – Good News: Obama Energy Secretary Nominee Wants To Skyrocket Your Energy Costs
Tina Trent.Com – Bringing Down America: An FBI Informer With the Weathermen, and a Plea to Police Witnesses

See you next week! Don’t forget to tune in on Monday AM for this week’s Watcher’s Forum, as the Council and their invited special guests take apart one of the provocative issues of the day with short takes and weigh in…don’t you dare miss it. And don’t forget to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter…..’cause we’re cool like that!